Toronto police link U.S. Consulate shooting to GTA gun-for-hire network

Toronto police say the March shooting at the U.S. Consulate in downtown Toronto has exposed a wider gun-for-hire network that stretched across the Greater Toronto Area, drew in federal national security investigators and ended with an airport arrest nearly three months later. The case has also become a test of how quickly police can trace suspects who record attacks on phones, move stolen vehicles across the city and disappear into a broader pattern of coordinated violence.

Investigators say the consulate attack happened at about 5:29 a.m. on March 10 at 360 University Avenue, when two suspects got out of a stolen white Honda CR-V and fired multiple rounds at the building. No one inside was injured, but police found shell casings and damage to the glass and doors. Surveillance video allegedly showed the suspects filming the shooting on their phones, and the stolen vehicle was later found abandoned in Scarborough.

Toronto police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police treated the case as a national security matter, with the RCMP and the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team opening a parallel investigation. Chief Myron Demkiw said investigators believe young people were hired through encrypted messaging apps to carry out and film attacks, a model police describe as “criminals for hire.” Toronto police say the consulate case is tied to at least 27 firearm discharge incidents across the GTA, including shootings at synagogues, Jewish schools and GFL Environmental waste management facilities.

The investigation took a deadly turn on June 11 in North York, when officers were executing search warrants on Martha Eaton Way linked to the same probe. Const. Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was shot and killed, one suspect, 19-year-old Nicholas Bennett, was shot by police and remained hospitalized, and another suspect was still outstanding at the time.

On June 17, police arrested the final suspect in the consulate case, 19-year-old Zara Jabbi, at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Jabbi faces six charges, including discharging a firearm at a place, attacking the premises of internationally protected persons and theft of a vehicle. Toronto police had already charged 18-year-old Sheldon Tracey-Stewart in connection with the shooting; court documents say he is accused of discharging a firearm at the consulate and attacking the official premises of an internationally protected person, Consul General Baxter Hunt.

Police say two recovered firearms are believed to be linked to multiple shootings across the city, one tied to at least six incidents and another to at least 21. Investigators also say the consulate attack has been linked to an April 2026 U.S. Department of Justice criminal complaint tied to an FBI terrorism arrest, underscoring how a pre-dawn shooting at a diplomatic post escalated into a cross-border security case with national implications.